The Room in the Tower

Born on the same stormy night of 1816 as Frankenstein, Polidori's tale turned Lord Byron into Lord Ruthven, the first aristocratic vampire. This annotated student edition adds notes and context to the story that started it all.

John William Polidori

A young priest glimpses a dazzling courtesan on the day of his ordination and spends years living a double life with her, by night, as she drinks his blood. Gautier's 1836 romance in the translation by Lafcadio Hearn.

Théophile Gautier

A grieving husband watches his dead first wife, Ligeia, fight her way back to life through the body of his second. Poe's tale of a will stronger than death is a classic of the revenant and the proto-vampire.

Edgar Allan Poe

In a superstitious Breton village, a pale English wife is blamed when the local children start to sicken. Linton's 1872 story turns the vampire hunt into a study of fear, gossip and mob violence.

Eliza Lynn Linton

A young composer rents a lonely villa outside Rome and falls for a woman who appears only in the vaults at night. Told by his friends after he vanishes, this 1886 tale is one of the finest vampire stories of the Victorian era.

Anne Crawford von Rabe